


fall fast, fall free

by sabinelagrande



Series: ambulance [2]
Category: Iron Man (2008), Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-18
Updated: 2010-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:37:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's only been borrowing it for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fall fast, fall free

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [you will be my one last chance](http://archiveofourown.org/works/52730).

_Holy shit, I'm fucking the Iron Man,_ John thinks the first time Stark lets him access his workshop.

He doesn't realize he's said it out loud until he hears Ms. Potts's choked giggling behind him, quickly and poorly camouflaged as a cough.

He completely fails to care, though, because this is like Christmas morning and Superbowl Sunday and ten years of birthdays, all rolled into one.

\--

Some tabloid gets a picture of him and Shep making out in the back of some club. Obadiah forwards it to him; the press release- which predictably says that StarkSoft's forthcoming alternative to Photoshop has already determined that the picture is a deliberate and well-crafted forgery- is attached.

All that really happens is a marked increase in the number of women who want to fuck both of them at once.

He has Pepper send the photographer a gift basket.

\--

He fucking misses the whole fucking thing!

He's talking to his cousin Mark- who he hasn't seen since, what, the eighties?- and Mark's kid- who he's never seen, but who is really emphatic about showing John his tinkertoys- when Dave comes over. "You really need to come see this."

When they get to the den, John wonders why Dave thinks he needs to look at Anderson Cooper- not that he's not great to look at and all, but seriously, how often does John get to play with tinkertoys?- when he starts actually reading all the words on the screen. He can't even figure out what all is going on- the arc reactor blew up? How is that even possible? He can already tell that CNN's story is full of bulllshit- but he doesn't feel like he knows enough about what's going on to pull what little truth there is out of it.

"Goddammit," John mutters to himself. He pulls out his cell phone and sends off a text message:
    
    
    what the fuck stark

 

The reply is almost instantaneous- Pepper must have his phone:
    
    
    Stay there. Ass deep in reporters. Can't talk. Call you later.

 

It's pretty much exactly what he expected, though that doesn't mean it's not totally frustrating.

"You know Tony Stark?" Ellen asks him, because she's apparently like the last person on Earth who doesn't pay attention to TMZ.

"He's my, um," he says, trying to process too much information already to add in trying to find a sister-in-law appropriate term for _this guy who sort of pays me under the table to live in his guest house and play with his toys, and also we're fucking, y'know, in a friendly kind of a way_. "He's a friend of mine."

"Did you know about this?" his brother asks as they rerun the press conference footage again.

He gives Dave a tight smile that doesn't reach his eyes- the NDA Grin, they used to call it when they were kids, their dad pulled it on them all the time- and Dave returns an amused little smirk in recognition.

He tells Mark's kid about it later, though- about how incredibly, mind-numbingly, terrifyingly awesome it is being in the armor- cause little guy's like seven, and anybody over the age of eight who hears it will think he made it up.

\--

Rhodey and Shep can't even stand to be in the same room, and that really sucks.

It's not like they hate each other or anything- it's just that they both get really tense, and Rhodey looks at Shep with sad eyes, and Shep tries to look anywhere but Rhodey's face, and Tony is left trying to talk to both of them separately at the same time.

And of course, neither of them will talk to Tony about it. He figures it's because he's not Air Force- not that Shep is any more, either, but once a zoomie- he's not really family, so he wouldn't understand.

Tony's not allowed to know the details, but that doesn't mean he can't see the edges. It's something Shep did, something big, probably what got him an OTH Discharge in the first place. Something that didn't bother Rhodey, something Tony thinks he might even respect Shep for doing, but something that was probably a major league fuck up in everybody else's eyes. He doesn't trouble himself about it much past that- it fits what he knows of both of them, which is a whole hell of a lot at this point.

But fuck, he wishes they were at least comfortable sitting next to one another.

\--

It happens the first time he takes the Mark- what are they up to now? Like, nine?- out. All he's intending to do is make a couple passes around the city, maybe over to the coast, see how the waves are today, but that plan doesn't last very long.

"Sir," Jarvis says just after he's cleared the building, sounding weirdly urgent.

Despite everything, John has never gotten used to talking to Tony's "butler"; it spooks him a little. "I think you have the wrong number."

"I do know it's you in there, Mr. Sheppard," the AI tells him. "There is a situation."

Before he can protest, Jarvis feeds him the data.

_Fuck_. There's kids, and Stark Industries tech and- fuck, it's bad, even to John, who's seen more than his fair share of seriously bad things. And it's somewhere in Afghanistan, and if John never goes back to that godforsaken hell hole it will be too soon, but- but.

John brings the Mark Whatever into a hover. Nobody is ever going to know if he doesn't go. Stark is streaming the flight data, obviously, but John knows that anything that Jarvis tells him stays private- John is pretty sure that's because Stark doesn't want to invade Jarvis's privacy, but the two of them have got a seriously weird relationship. He could turn right back around or call Stark- not that there's going to be time for him to suit up and take care of this- or just go down to the beach and act like nothing happened.

But if he does go, then it's not really him, is it? It's the Iron Man. It could be anybody. It could be nobody. He could save the whole world from complete annihilation and nobody would ever know his name.

John realizes that he has no problem with that idea.

_East,_ he thinks. _Go east._

\--

Tony's cell phone rings about the time that he notices that the Mark VII is on the TV.

Huh.

"Please don't blow Shep up," he tells Rhodey. Tony has to hold the phone away from his ear at the response. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

He's on the phone doing damage control for the better part of an hour; he happens to glance up, and Shep is standing in the doorway. His face is completely blank, like he has no idea what Tony is going to say but he doesn't give a fuck what it is.

"I had to," Shep tells him, his shoulders thrown back in a perfect military fuck-you pose.

"C'mon," Tony replies. "Let's have a drink."

"I think I dropped my cell phone over Kansas," he admits as Tony presses a tumbler into his hand.

Tony laughs, kissing him on the forehead. "That's what we have Pepper for."

\--

John is still not fired.

–

John wakes up in the afternoon after a truly spectacular night, stepping over a passed out blonde and an empty bottle of Moet to get to his computer. When he checks his Twitter- a horrible habit that Stark's gotten him into, and which he really needs to break himself of if he's ever not going to feel like a fourteen year old girl- he discovers that Stark's posted a picture of his- John's- dick, right there for all 54,013 of his followers to see.

Everybody assumes it's Stark's though, so John isn't too pissed. And hey, John's dick makes him the third most popular Twitter in the world, right after CNN and Stephen Fry.

\--

"I got you a job interview," Stark tells him over breakfast.

"Okay," John says, sipping his coffee, and just like that, it's over.

He's enjoyed himself here, working on the armor and fucking around with Stark. But that's just it- they've just been fucking around, and they've both always known it. This has never really been his place. He's only been borrowing it for a while.

He packs his things before lunch, just in case he needs to leave in a hurry.

\--

Stark fails to mention that this job interview is in fucking _Antarctica_ until they're already on the plane.

\--

Tony tries to tell himself that this isn't one more for the road.

He just isn't that kind of a guy- he's not sentimental or picky or operating under the delusion that sex means anything.

He keeps his hands in Shep's hair as Shep blows him- not to guide him, but just because he likes the way it feels tangled up in his fingers, thick and a little coarse.

He lets Shep fuck him- they don't, normally, but Tony figures this is a special occasion. Shep looks so serious above him, concentrating so hard on hitting all the right marks, so careful with Tony's body, like it matters to him. He doesn't make a lot of noise when he comes, just gasps, eyes dark and intense, shaking and sweating like he's falling apart.

Tony memorizes it, because he'll never see it again.

Shep doesn't know it yet, but this time next week Tony will be the farthest thing from his mind.

\--

"Think about where we are in the solar system," Dr. McKay tells him.

John has gotten to the point where he doesn't feel like an asshole thinking stuff at inanimate objects anymore, but, holy fucking shit, it's _never_ been like this.

"Did I do that?" he asks, staring up in awe.

"You're fired," Tony says cheerfully.

"You can't fire me," John replies, smiling. "I quit."

McKay looks at both of them like they're seriously deranged.

\--

He doesn't see Tony again after that; John doesn't even have time to think about saying good bye until after he's already gone.


End file.
